How advanced Alien societies may differ from ours.

There is also the possibility that an alien race wouldn't need to be as individually advanced as we are to be more technologically advanced.

If, for example, they had some type of "hive mind", they could magnify the power of the individual brain to solve a whole range of problems without the individuals even needing to fully grasp the problem.

What could the interlinked brains of an Australopithecene civilization achieve? Or even a civilization of racoons?

Even a cruder chemical form of communication could produce amazing results. Look what ants can achieve with very rudimentary nervous systems, but complicated forms of chemical communication. Imagine what one of the lower primates might do with a similar system.

Originally posted by Donegal_TDI
This has the potential to be a huge topic as IMHO there are most certainly millions of advanced Alien societies in our own Galaxy alone. But to keep it short I want to seek opinions on what for many is a taboo subject for many reasons, namely Eugenics.

The reason humans are as fit as they are, and as smart, is that the weak and sick simply died off, and the more successful food gatherers and physically/socially fit specimens went on to breed. This is the way things were until the advent of modern medicine. Now it’s a free for all and the long term implications for humanity, and more importantly the future health and evolution of humanity, is seldom discussed, again taboo.

Earth’s human population is growing fast and an older species out in the cosmos will have had to deal with both these emotive subjects. Modern earth societies have a very short term view on things looking forward maybe a few years at a time. As each country tends to do its own thing, along with strong religious views thrown into the mix, in the future are we going to be faced with the same decisions China has had to make in enforcing one child families?

I think an Advanced older Alien society may have strict laws planet wide to protect the long term survival and health of their species. The right to breed will not be a free for all for everyone, but a privilege earned either academically or physically or a mixture of the both, and strict quotas will be enforced.
In this way, evolution will continue as only top achievers will be putting their genes into the gene pool. Instead of taking pills to avoid birth, medication or some other procedure would be earned and given to allow breeding.

I would like your opinions on the scenarios that might exist on such a planet,
How their society might work,
Problems that would have to be dealt with,
And the general mechanics of how such a system might play out in practice.

The Pleiadians appear to have a very strict population control on their planet Erra.
It's in the Taygeta Star System - Pleiades Star Cluster.
They have 400 million on a planet a little smaller than Earth.

Just by looking at Earth today you can see the problems with over population.

If i may put my 2p worth of thought. Any advanced civilisation and moreover any advanced civilisation that has achieved the feat of insterstellar space travel will have overcome the need to kill each other. We on Earth are very primitive in how we treat members of our own race, that is the Human Race. We are constantly at war with each other. Just imagine what could have been achieved if we spent all that money and resource on space travel. We would have had colonies on Mars by now and probably the Moon. That would ease overcrowding on Earth for sure.

Before discussing what other societies might be like I think we should get our own planet in order first. We are on the brink of destroying it both ecologically and through the danger of nuclear war as all too chillingly reminded of by North Korea which may as well be another planet in itself!

I despair of the Human Race. We have a beautiful planet but we are trashing it. So yeah I am saddened to be living in a primative society. When is the next flying saucer due to leave Earth? i want to hitch a ride!!!

Originally posted by jheherrin
Always amusing when these subjects come up and people assume that intelligent extra-terrestrial civilizations will have the same concept of morality and the ideas about it as we do, as if morality was universal, which is ludicrous in my opinion. The aliens are either good or evil, right?

This is usually what comes to mind when I get beat on for saying morality is relative rather than absolute.

There is an assumption underlying a lot of peoples thinking that 'super advanced' aliens have to be morally advanced. That may be likely. However, the morality may not be like ours.

To assume that technologically advanced aliens would have a morality like ours, because they have technology is sloppy thinking or wilful ignorance.

A civilisation so advanced would more than likely have pretty unfathomable technology (to human-eyes) that is capable of Terraforming any planet that they set their sights on. So overpopulation wouldn't technically be a problem. Though expect their cities/towns/whatever-they-call-them to be infinitely more economical and environmentally sound compared to our monstrosities that we've had for the past thousand or more years..

reply to post by Donegal_TDI

As Druscilla suggested earlier, science-fiction writers have produced hundreds of innovative fictional alien societies, and we're not likely to come up with anything in this thread that they haven't bettered already. Still, that needn't stop us from discussing it.

I read the whole thread before replying to this. Most of the other posters have taken a general view on the topic, but it seems to me that what you're really interested in is the eugenics angle.

Eugenics is always a bad idea, because it doesn't work; in fact, it always ends up weakening, not strengthening the breed, because we cannot foresee what environmental conditions the future will throw at our species. The concept of eugenics presupposes either that future conditions will always be the same as present-day ones, or that they will alter in ways that can be foreseen and accounted for by present-day eugenicists as they breed the supermen and superwomen of the future.

Some people think human evolution has stopped. It hasn't. If anything, it has probably accelerated in the last fifteen thousand years or so, because the stress of environmental change upon our species has increased. The human habitat has changed out of all recognition and continues to do so. We keep changing it, that's why; and in turn, it changes us.

Evolution is a fluid, dynamic response to environmental change, governed by natural selection. Eugenics—selective breeding, genetic engineering, whatever you want to call it—interferes and diverts the process. You may get what you want, but you get things you don't want, too. In the long run, any attempt at eugenics will make the human race less, not more, fit and adaptable than before.

This is a good thread.

The 'planet' as described by the ancient Sumerian texts was glowing. This also agrees with many modern day UFO reports and even UFO reports of the olden days.

So you can imagine a glowing planet, the ancient Sumerians actually said the planet was a glowing cross, so it would be like a large glowing planet with small glowing UFOs lfying about around it.

Take your eugenics, depopulation agenda and cram it up your Rockerfeller. If you really cared about what alien civilizations might be like, you would be reading and talking about science fiction. There are literally hundreds of brilliant science fiction novels written about this subject, about what aliens might be like, how bizarre they might be.

You seem to have read none of them. All your follow up comments are lazy and uninteresting. Your thread should be moved into the Gray Area, also known as the garbage can. You can talk about why you think rich people should murder everyone over there. You will get a lot of support for you mania there. Naturally.

reply to post by Moresby


You're correct in all those assumptions, I'm assumming one can go so deep in that, but it would probably come crossing to another density. Like when an alien looks into the eyes of an abductee up close for some time, what they are doing is going into the past so that an alien can know every single small detail about a personality, it gets to a more magical place than we know in our consciousness because it is our unconscious subconsciousness which has these capabilities of perceiving. I think all skeptics of hypnosis are probably just scared of hypnosis given the trust of a therapist because it is our current only access to these deeper layers of memory and also a penetration to break down the walls cognitive limitations. But we have to take into account sort of a more powerful conclusion that all of the Roswell researchers have come up with, this living communicating biological and organic craft that the aliens fly around in. All the aliens have to do is put their hands on a control panel and the conscious craft can read the mind of the alien, this can be achieved and proven scientifically.

For a society as a whole to invest huge resources in space travel, it most likely would involve global co operation on their part, or then again, it could be run by the equivalent of our military. Whatever is behind it, some payback would be expected.
For scenario 1 it would probably be extra resources obtained,
or colonising suitable worlds.
For scenario 2, the military, it could be extra territory to exploit,
or the persuit of yet more technology, or weaponology.
Whoever, or whatever, is allegedly visiting us, covertness seems to be the name of their game.
Maintaining secrecy on the alien part does not bode well,
as secrecy usually implies something to hide.
Or they could be pushing the extremes of a prime directive rule,
no direct engagement with a lesser technologically evolved society.
It all boils down to power and who has it.
Our supposedly benevolent visitors may have interstellar technology
but be militarily weak and would seek to avoid conflict with more agressive types.
Other less benevolent types may have crossed the line and have an "arrangement" with shady members of our dark military.
As always its a question of who gets what.
If we have gotten some technological scraps
what has been given on our behalf?

If in a typical advanced alien society there has been trickle down of energy generation to the general populace which is not petrochemical in nature,
then that society is going to be structured very different to ours.
On top of this maybe the society does not use money at all.
In my mind, no sci-fi movie has dealt adequately with either of these topics convincingly.
No money would imply no control,
which is where eugenics may raise its head again,
the right to breed,
which as I said before may not be a right in itself for another civilisation.
To survive longterm, population has to be controlled,
for fear of reckless consumption of resources.

FAO Nicorette, unless you have something to contribute, go away and pick a battle elsewhere.

reply to post by Donegal_TDI

In my mind, no sci-fi movie has dealt adequately

Not 'sci-fi' movies.

Science. Fiction. Novels.

Have you read any?

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by Donegal_TDI

 

In my mind, no sci-fi movie has dealt adequately

Not 'sci-fi' movies.

Science. Fiction. Novels.

Have you read any?

Many.

reply to post by Donegal_TDI

Well then, which alien societies in particular struck you as interesting?

The books that I have read while doing research are not fiction and do not deal with hypothetical alien civilisations.
If you want a list I can provide one.
I am more interested in the opinions of those here deeply interested in the subject that can give an intelligent view on the original topic.

reply to post by Donegal_TDI


OP

you know how hard it is to find habitable planet in the massive universe

if there is such advanced civilization out there that short on resource and loving space, dont you think the SETI beacon will lead them here ? not to solve our problem but to solve their problem.

if there are advanced race of aliens out there, are they living in the same timeframe as us ? or are they already died away ?

if there are advanced races out there, could they bridge the massive distance of space to reach other habitated world ?

in short , any old race will be jealous of young race, any poor race will covet rich race, any race will focus on their needs first..

Self interest will likely be the way of things,
particularly if an alien home world is under pressure from either population overgrowth or depleting resources or other issues.

For us, right now,
the clock is ticking.
If human population continues to grow at its present rate,
consuming all around,
less resources will become available for scientific research,
which could have led some day to a discovery leading to interplanetary/interstellar travel.

If things don't change soon,
we are stuck on this rock,
unless the stories about black projects turn out to be true.

Nature is harsh in the way that terrestrial fauna population is controlled,
the weak die or are predated upon.
It is a self correcting mechanism
to produce the best and the fittest and maintain the integrity of each species.
Good genes may turn out to be the second most valuable cosmic currency
after technology.
Maybe that's what our alleged visitors are harvesting,
both from animals and humans.
Things have a balance,
and unless that balance is maintained preferably by humane methods,
disaster lurks around the corner.
Old alien societies will have addressed this,
ideals and freedoms have no place here,
the good of the many outweighs the good of the one.

Personally I believe many permutations of global structures exist in mature alien home worlds,
where their society can flourish without fear of exhausting available resources in the short term
and damaging the biosphere.
I doubt if any of these stable permutations resemble what we have on earth, right now.

So whether you accept it or not
our future, and our survival, will demand radical changes to the way we do things.
If we have open contact with our ET brethren,
this is the most important thing we can learn from them.

In terms of any of this affecting Earth, than it doesn't matter Space Treaties mean no one can interfere with developing civilizations.

Hopefully most of them have abolished the concept of money.

Good thread, thanks for the read.

reply to post by Donegal_TDI


If a space-faring race, and capable of inter-stellar travel, then population and resources are non-issues.

For this same reason, I think it unlikely an alien race would be hostile. On Earth, wars are always about controlling resources. Without that cause, the reason for war evaporates. And, with unlimited resources (interstellar space), no reason to fight.

I personally believe the Universe (even our own Solar System) is teeming with life. Intelligent life may be more rare, but I think life is out there, all over the place, even if just little microbes in the deep sea vents of Europa, etc. (although the thought of an empty ocean is kind of crazy)...

I would imagine though, that with so much travel, a lot of diversity has gone out the window... They would have developed a "sameness" to their cultures as they became more and more global. We already see that here, to an extent. Imagine another 100 years or so. One language, one religion (or lack thereof), one culture. Perhaps they've even gone so far as using only artificial means to reproduce, thus permanently taking the weak genes out, etc.